Kim Beazley has decided on his next step on the road to “making the Government accountable”: he’s chosen six ambitious young MPs to form a ‘Waste Watch’ committee to scrutinise the Government’s actions – and as a training ground for future advancement.

Announcing the idea in his speech to the National Press Club in April, Beazley denied at the time that the committee was a vote of no-confidence in his own shadow ministry. Which is a bit hard to swallow. After all, isn’t a key job in Opposition to keep a close eye on Government excess?

But now the names have been revealed, it’s clear Beazley has drawn up the committee with the future in mind. It will pay to keep an eye on this team, chaired by Western Sydney MP Chris Bowen, and containing Victorians Brendan O’Connor and Anna Burke, Sydney’s Julie Owens, Brisbane’s Bernie Ripoll and Adelaide’s Kate Ellis.

The Labor shadow ministry certainly will be watching their efforts: the six “P-Platers” will be looking to take the jobs of tardy front bench non-performers between now and the next election. The idea of a waste watch committee is a tried and true parish pump politics formula that works well in State Opposition – where money spent on long lunches by bureaucrats and overseas junkets by local pollies can create tabloid headlines and fire up shock jocks.

The amount of money spent by this government on pork barrelling should give Beazley’s team of tyros plenty of fodder – even without the resources that come with an official parliamentary committee. But we do have a problem with the name. Surely it’s a bit old and tired, especially given the youth and calibre of personnel.